If the celestials couldn’t stop the Lord of Shadows, what chance did these godlings have? Better yet, what chance did we have? I tried to push the thought out of my mind as Eli caught up with us. Zeran headed off to math, which he had with Gail, Tisha, and Candace, while the rest of us set off for science.

When Frankie, Eli, and I stepped into the lab, we looked longingly at the empty desk in front of the room. Mr. Jenkins, aka Shangó, had formulas scribbled across the board.

Frankie blinked at the whiteboard. “Interesting.”

“What’s interesting?” Eli arched one eyebrow. “Paranormal-level interesting or normal-likely-boring interesting?”

“It looks like Shangó, um, I mean Mr. Jenkins, was working on a theory about dark energy,” Frankie said as we climbed into our chairs. When Eli and I both cocked our heads, she explained. “Dark energy makes up about sixty-eight percent of the universe, but scientists don’t know why the energy exists, only that this dark energy causes the universe to expand faster and faster. Meaning that the universe is growing at an accelerated rate.”

I crossed my arms on our table and put my head down. I did not care about a theory on dark energy. Studying space right now was the last thing on my mind. It just seemed so irrelevant and a little disrespectful to talk about when we knew that Shangó, Ogun, and Principal Ollie were in trouble.

“According to these equations, he thought that dark energy could be recalibrated to create a vacuum in space,” Frankie continued.

“Will you give it a rest?” Winston yelled from across the room. “Shangó isn’t here for you to impress with your nerdiness. You’re just making stuff up anyway. You don’t understand those equations.”

“I understand them more than you do,” Frankie countered.

“That’s enough” came a cranky voice that I would know anywhere. Miss Ida Johnston stepped into our class juggling a stack of science books. “We will not speculate on theories.”

I groaned as I lifted my head. Of the cranky Johnston twins, by far, Miss Ida was the crankier one. She was wearing a plain, shapeless gray dress that was one shade darker than her gray hair, which she had in a puffy bun. “Are you our substitute teacher?” I resisted adding, What’s even the point?

Miss Ida placed her books on Shangó’s desk. “Don’t look so overjoyed to see me, Miss Abeola.”

Well, that was a first, her calling me Miss Abeola. I sat up straight in my chair.

“For those who don’t know me, I will be stepping in for Mr. Jenkins today,” she said to the class. “You may call me Miss Johnston. My twin sister will be fulfilling Principal Ollie’s duties. You may call her Miss Johnston too.”

“How are we going to tell you apart?” someone asked.

“With your eyes,” Miss Ida said, glaring at the kid.